Would you welcome more traffic on the A96 into Aberdeen?

Would you welcome more traffic on the A96 between Kintore and Aberdeen?

It emerged this week that adding more traffic onto the A96 at Kintore was the purpose of the A96 dualling blue route to the north east of Inverurie.

There had been some puzzlement as to why the blue route headed so far east through prime agricultural land around Daviot, to a proposed flyover in a rural setting near Lochter.

After all, this routing through a huge swathe of some of Aberdeen’s most productive farmland would be significantly longer and hillier – Inevitably meaning it would not only be directly more damaging to the rural environment, it would also be more polluting and less fuel efficient.

It now turns out that the aim is to entice traffic from the A947 to head out the junction near Lochter to join the A96.

This additional A947 traffic would then be taken through more prime agricultural land in the Bourtie, Keithhall, Kinmuck and Balbithan communities, before being whisked across the River Don to join the current A96 route at Kintore.

How do we know that the purpose of this longer route is to add more traffic on the A96 from Kintore to Aberdeen?

After its rural jaunt around Daviot, Fingask, Barra, Bourtie, Keithhall, Kinmuck and Balbithan, the new A96 would take this additional traffic to Kintore across a huge (estimates suggest 600 metres would be the minimum length) new Kintore bridge over the River Don flood plain.

Needless to say such a huge construction on the flood plain raises concerns about the future flooding threat to Port Elphinstone, Inverurie and Kintore.

If you are not in favour of a routing that aims to add more traffic on the A96 from Kintore to Aberdeen, write to your councillors now. Tell them you oppose the proposal for the A96 blue route to take traffic off the A947 and add it onto the A96 at Kintore.